Government will support media self-regulation

Media in Montenegro, to the extent of unique self-regulation they would strive for, will have the support of the Government, which will seek to make an economically sustainable concept of media self-regulation, without interfering in its independence, said Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pazin.

Speaking at the conference “the Research Journalism and Code of Ethics - Obstacles, Challenges and How to Obtain Professional Standards”, he stressed that freedom of expression is of crucial importance for achieving all other freedoms and rights.

"In the social moment Montenegro is being in right now, the question arises whether the absolute freedom of expression in a state, as a facticity, is in a conflict between the normative and the real," Pazin said.

As he noted, international legal instruments that are binding for the Montenegrin society, do not regulate freedom of expression and freedom of the media as absolute rights, but as rights that are largely conditioned.

"However, the current social moment raises the question of whether the downgraded culture of dialogue in the past years gives legitimacy to the question of whether freedom of expression in Montenegro is absolute and whether it is good for society," Pazin said.